., the foreign secretary, and also the ukrainian -- he invited sergey lavrov, to join them as part of this budapest amendment, what he was hoping would be part of a diplomatic way forward. but the russian foreign minister declined to attend the meeting, citing scheduling conflicts. even as the u.s. pushes for this diplomatic way forward, it's looking very rough, wolf. >> looking very rough indeed. so he has wrapped up his talks. the u.s., and correct me if i am wrong, it does formally recognize this new interim government in kiev, the government that replaced the ousted president as the legitimate government of ukraine, right? >> reporter: that's right. it doesn't recognize president yanukovych as the president of ukraine any longer, even though that's what the russians are recognizing. secretary kerry met with many members of the new government, members of the parliament and said that the u.s. wants to help them move towards the elections they'll be having. in may, they'll be training, and they also announced a very robust aid package for ukraine to the tune of $1 billion loan guaran